Interesting Picture

I stumbled across this photo online. I have no information about it other than the photo. I saw it was referenced on a couple of forums I don’t have access too.

For all I know it could be airsoft, but lets imagine for a moment that we know it isn’t.

I used to hear that women could tell a great deal about a person by their shoes. I’m not a women, so I have no idea if that is true or not. But you can tell a little about a person by their weapons.

Lets take a look at some of the oddities of this weapon first. Well I suppose we should look at the basics first:

It appears to be a HK416 or a cut down/rebarreled MR556. The photo is somewhat blurry so I can’t tell if there is a third pin for full auto or not. It has a Geissele scope mount which means this is a newer photo, but it appears to have a very old Surefire 4 slot flash hider. This seems to imply the user has been using an old Surefire 556K for a long time.

Correction, it has been pointed out to me that it is the newer 212A 5 slot flash hider.

I’ve heard rumors of the combination of the old 556k and the 416 destroying guns. I have no idea if this is true or not, when I had MR556 uppers I never ran them suppressed.

Back to the topic. This rifle appears to have one of the new Nightforce 1-8x scopes which are pretty new. That scope is sitting in a Geissele scope mount, which are said to be very good (and are extremely expensive). I find it extremely ironic that this ultra tough non quick detach scope mount has been set on top of a LaRue QD riser. This tells a few things. The person who set this up wanted or needed the scope higher and/or needed the ability to quickly remove the scope.

They they didn’t just use a taller Geissele or Larue mount I don’t know. If this is an issued firearm and they are using an issued Geissele scope mount this would be an example of the the wrong equipment being selected for the end user.

Then there is another aspect I find interesting. There is an offset Aimpoint T-1, while the rifle has a 1-8X on it. Aside from the offset T-1 and the light tape switch hinting strongly the the user of this rifle is right handed. It also implies that they feel that switching the scope to 1x is either inferior or slower to just rolling the rifle and usign the offset T-1. If they didn’t feel that way it would be unlikely that they would have the additional weight and cost of the T-1 on their rifle.

This person then is also doing something that warrants having 8x magnification on their 10.4 inch barreled rifle. If it was simply for observation the user would most likely just carry something like a monocular or binocular. Instead this person can use the 8x magnification on their rifle.

But my two biggest things I found interesting in this photo. That the 1x on the 1-8x is some way insufficient and warrants still having a T-1. That the Geissele scope mount is either too low or not QD and needed to be set on a Larue QD riser.

2 thoughts on “Interesting Picture”

That looks to me like Nightforce ATACR 1-8 in a Geissele 34mm SOCOM mount, part# 05-330S. Geissele doesn’t make a 1.93″ or taller 34mm mount, so they’d have to put it on a riser to get it up over the laser device.

I was sent this photo over two years ago from an industry friend. At the time I was told it was a CAG gun with one of the prototype NF ATACR 1-8 scopes. Notice that the elevation turret has the ZeroHold feature found on the ATACR 4-16×42 F1, which was left out of the production ATACR 1-8 because of litigation with Leupold. My image is much higher quality and it’s possible to see the auto sear pin above the selector.

I can also confirm the age and prototype status of the optic, as I held one of the ATACR 1-8 prototypes in 2016 which still had the ZeroHold elevation turret.

The use of the riser is to give clearance over the ATPIAL (or LA5), which would be very noticeable in the field of view at 1x through the optic, plus the additional height also allows the user to go passive with NVGs and use the scope to aim as opposed to the laser/illuminator.

The offset T1 allowed the user to ditch iron sights; there’s so little free rail space on the front of the 10.4″ 416, especially with the ATPIAL. If you were carrying this into combat with a prototype scope, I’m sure you’d want a back up sighting system of one type or another. 🙂